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Mark A. de Bernardo

Biography

Mark A. de Bernardo is a Principal in the Washington, D.C. Region office of Jackson Lewis P.C. He concentrates his practice on employment litigation and counseling, government relations, and workplace drug testing and substance-abuse prevention.

Mr. de Bernardo's specialty is representation of employers on senior executive personnel actions. He has extensive experience in the management of employment-related class actions.

Mr. de Bernardo has provided legal representation to more than 50 Fortune 200 corporations; five federal executive branch agencies; the states of Kansas, Louisiana, and California; the governments of Japan, Spain, and the Bahamas; and nearly 20 national trade associations.

In regard to senior executive personnel actions, Mr. de Bernardo is in demand regarding the investigation, adverse employment action, negotiation of severance, and litigation of employment claims by highly placed corporate executives.

Mr. de Bernardo has testified more than 40 times before Congress and various federal and state regulatory agencies and legislative committees on employment and labor law issues as part of his government relations practice. He has submitted or participated in 11 amici curiae briefs to the United States Supreme Court, and nearly 30 amici briefs overall to various courts on behalf of trade associations, business coalitions, and corporate clients.

Mr. de Bernardo is the founder (in 2000), and serves as the President of the Council for Employment Law Equity, a national coalition advocating fair and appropriate policy-making in the employment area. In recent years, Mr. de Bernardo has testified in Congress seven times on behalf of the CELE on arbitration, criminal-background checks, and civil rights issues, and on U.S. Supreme Court employment law decisions. The CELE also regularly files amicus curiae briefs and comments during federal agency rule-makings.

Mr. de Bernardo is the founder (in 1989), and serves as the Executive Director of the Institute for a Drug-Free Workplace, a national coalition dedicated to promoting and preserving the rights of employers and employees in effective substance-abuse-prevention programs, and he served as the President of the Foundation for Drug Education and Awareness. Mr. de Bernardo is the author of four state drug-testing laws, and the only workplace drug-testing law endorsed by the President’s Commission on Model State Drug Laws. Among the many clients he has represented on drug-testing issues are the National Basketball Association, the U. S. House of Representatives, and more than 30 Fortune 200 corporations.

He is the author or co-author of 19 books on employment and labor law topics, including the two-volume, 1220-page Guide to State and Federal Drug-Testing Laws, now in its 16th Edition.

He is a frequent speaker at conferences, and has appeared on the Today Show, Good Morning America, Crossfire, Larry King Live, and the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news. Mr. de Bernardo has been quoted in such publications as Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

After graduation from Georgetown Law, Mr. de Bernardo served as Special Counsel for Domestic Policy and Director of Labor Law for the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. Prior to that, he clerked for a federal judge – the Right Honorable Henry F. McQuade.

Mr. de Bernardo is active in a number of professional and community organizations. He was appointed, and twice reappointed, by the Japanese government as the American management representative to the Japan Institute of Labour. He also has contributed chapters to several ABA publications, and has been a guest lecturer at the U.S. Army War College, NYU, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, George Washington, American, and the University of Kansas.

He served in the United States Navy Reserve from 1972 to 1975.

He and his wife Jennifer have three sons – Joseph, Matthew, and Jonathan – and reside in Vienna, Virginia.

Mark de Bernardo comments on marijuana legalization and workplace drug policies in "Marijuana Legalization Votes Won’t End Drug-Free Workplaces," published by Law 360.
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Mark de Bernardo discusses employee assistance programs for workers struggling with drug and alcohol addiction in The Houston Chroncile's "Business see value in treating workers with addictions."
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Mark de Bernardo discusses implications of substance abuse in the workplace in the Atlanta Business Chronicle's "Companies must protect themselves from substance abusers."
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With the race for the White House heating up, the “politics of marijuana” is looming as a possibly significant factor.
Twenty-four state ballot initiatives on marijuana legalization in 16 states have been filed already and will be voted on in November 2016, including in the “swing states” of Arizona, Colorado,...
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*Honolulu, Hawai‘i is through an affiliation with Jackson Lewis P.C., a Law Corporation
**The National Operations Center serves as the firm's central administration hub and houses the firm's Facilities, Finance, Human Resources and Technology departments.

*Honolulu, Hawai‘i is through an affiliation with Jackson Lewis P.C., a Law Corporation
**The National Operations Center serves as the firm's central administration hub and houses the firm's Facilities, Finance, Human Resources and Technology departments.